Tuesday night was something of a shock and I thought it was worth gathering opinions as to what went wrong. I heard it all on the radio and normally you would know the answer to this question but I have to admit, I don't. I have offered several thoughts, please say what you think. 1.Bassong missing his central defence partner and Barnett not up to it 2.Bassong getting too fond of being on the score sheet and took eye off the defensive ball 3.Hoolahoops not playing 4.Tierney not up to it 5.Mr.Bunn the baker not as good as big John 6.Villa just very clinical in front of goal 7.Morison not finishing as well All in all I think the game against Wigan is more important but I look forward to the views from fellow Canaries.
Can't argue with most of those - no 2 a bit harsh. I would also add Pilks having a poor game, change in formation and lack of making impact substitutions early enough to make an impact. Still it's out of our system, hopefully the management will have learned a lesson or two and we can beat Wigan and move on.
I was at the match against Villa and would say 1.Bassong missing his central defence partner and Barnett not up to it – pretty much agree and we do seem to be suffering with injuries to defenders, so options limited. Worth not risking Turner in this match and hope he’s fit to be in the starting 11 on Sat. 2.Bassong getting too fond of being on the score sheet and took eye off the defensive ball – don’t agree with this. 3.Hoolahoops not playing – Elliott Bennett can play this role, but I think CH wanted to play 4-4-2, so no place for either in the starting 11. Would have preferred to see EB given a run in place of Pilks, but CH seems to prefer Pilks. 4.Tierney not up to it – he was excellent until his injury last season, but has failed to reach the same standard this season. Should be sold I feel. 5.Mr.Bunn the baker not as good as big John – he made some exceptional saves, especially the one from Bent early on. Not as good as JR, but able deputy. 6.Villa just very clinical in front of goal – more a case of poor defending on our part. 7.Morison not finishing as well – very unlucky not to have a hat-trick with 2 goals early in the 2nd half, though played quite well..
My analysis of it would be pretty simple, it was just 'one of those games' and you can't win em all. On to Saturday's match we go
why are people questioning bunn all of a sudden? of course he isn't as good as ruddy - he should be england number one, if fit, on form! but bunn's still pretty darn good and certainly a more than capable deputy while ruddy recovers. he's much better than rudd...
They got the breakthrough at the right time and in our attempts to get back into it we opened ourselves up and they punished us. It will happen now and then. Not going to worry about it too much it's a shame but that's football.
Not sure if you can pinpoint any reason and say that's why we blew it. I had a sinking feling in my nether regions as I walked to the game and never felt confident - dunno why. As Tony says above - it was just "one of those games" I guess and analysing what went wrong won't make us feel any better will it while a good performance and a good result on Saturday surely will....
Had it been a league game, I feel the scoreline would have been a lot closer. After goal two or three it looked like we were goin out so the team didn't try as hard. In the league, goal difference is more important, so a close defeat is better than a big defeat.
spot on it might look like a thrashing to the outsider but anyone at the game will realise it was very evenly contested throughout. the scoreline could easily have been the other way around but villa for me just edged it and deserved to go through on the night.
I think this ten match unbeaten run might have messed with some people's expectations. All this meaningless speculation about how we'd have beaten them had it been a league game/if Ruddy had played/if Wes had played blah blah blah is nonsense if you ask me. Like I said earlier, despite our impressive run recently you can't win em all and the run was always going to come to an end at some point. I sincerely hope we're not going to get such an indepth post-mortem every time we lose a match.
I would like to see Bunn command his area better and hopefully, Dave Watson is working with him on that aspect of his game (it was one of JR's wekanesses when he first arrived!!). IMO, he has made some excellent and vital saves, none more so than against Sunderland when it looked as though the ball hit the post, but Bunn just got his fingertips to it.
on the bunn thing... what exactly are people expecting of a goalkeeper who cost £750k? he's a very good keeper and doing a good job yet some seem disappointed that he isn't peter schmeichel. if he was top notch in every department he wouldn't be our 2nd choice keeper
^ Agree with Munky's post above ^ After a slow start, it was almost inevitable that Lambert's new team would start to play like his last team did. It was just unfortunate that it all came together on Tuesday and that we were on the receiving end. Unfortunate, but as many have said, worse things will - and have happened. Cast your minds back 3 months to Fulham away, Liverpool at home where precious survival points were on the line. I'd rip your hand off for a 1 - 0 against Wigan on Saturday, but if we'd stuffed Villa 5 or 6, so what. It's only a (secondary) trophy. On a different tack, Adrian Durham - or whoever does talksport mornings, is engaged in a heated twitter debate with Iwan, Hucks and others about our finishing 3rd from bottom and going down . Do you think talksport pull a club out of a hat every day to lambast, insult and demean? And today just happens to be our turn?
villa had been playing well for a few weeks though. unbeaten in five says it all. they are improving and on the evidence of tuesday evening won't feature in the relegation zone come may - although i still feel that like us, they will be in the mix for some time to come. i don't listen to talk****e, but this durham chap keeps cropping up on my twitter timeline spouting absolute bollocks about our club. who the **** is he? i literally know nothing about the chump. is he ranting purely as a troll or does he actually believe the nonsense he's spouting?
Sorry folks, this was never meant to be a post mortem, it was purely a talking point and my list at the top was for people to possibly pick 1 option rather than see the list as a menu with all options possible and comment accordingly. I should have explained this and apologise for the way the thread has gone. I am still over the moon with the season and would not want my comments to be interpreted as a dampener in any way. Coat!
No need to apologise at all fella, it's a free forum where anybody can discuss whatever they want (within reason) and just because I don't think it's necessary it doesn't mean that others don't. I stand by what I said from a personal point of view however, and nice to see others do agree with me, but please don't feel bad chap as I wasn't intending to belittle anyone - it's not my forum after all
Thurnby C asked for opinions on the game and some specifics. Mearly saying "you can't win them all" probably doesn't answer much there does it? And yes speculation after the event will change nothing but will CH go in say "you can't win them all" or look at why we may be didn't win on this occation and learn from it? I agree you can't win them all and the undefeated run had to end, but in the same way as it was all debated; what team selection and how seriously we thought the COC should be taken before. When the changes are made its likely to promote discussion after. I've been a NCFC fan long enough to Hope not expect, expect is for the Manure, Citeh and other plastics Bah!
Durham does the drivetime evening show with Darren Gough, and seems to try to play the controversial opinion card on a regular basis. He came up with Chelsea to score 10 against us earlier in the season, and regularly came up with how bad we were, earlier in the season (seemed to go a bit quiet recently, I wonder why!). He is a Peterboro fan, and I reckon has serious small man syndrome! (Probably p*ssed off with how we've got some of their best players in the last few years)
